For the last 3 years I’ve been travelling to Zurich more than 200 times. In fact, I spent 50% of my last 3 years there. In this post I want to share with you the 3 habits I learnt that changed my life. Welcome to Zurich.

So I spent my last 3 years travelling back and forth all the time between London and Zurich as a I had a big project there. Besides visiting many places in Switzerland, I had the fortune to interact with local people on a regular basis and there are 3 things I picked up that are now habits part of my life. These 3 habits are definitely the compound interest of my self-improvement. Also worth mentioning that I even got engaged in Switzerland, so you guys know the magnitude and the impact that this country has in my life.

Before I forget, I’ve also made a video about this in case you want to check:

1. P.E.A.R System. Plan, Execute, Adjust, Repeat.

Every project I’ve ever done with Swiss people was the same. We spent a lot of time on planning and seriously a LOT. Weeks and sometimes even months. We were over engineering even simple things. Not even in the UK I spent that amount of time on just planning. And by planning I mean things like idea generation, scoping, tasks, resources, timelines, controls and different angles to make projects at least in theory successful. And very important a DUE DATE for everything.

The next step was the execution. And here’s the big test. Because technically after planning so much, we should expect great results right? It was not always the case but I have to say that the ability to quickly react was a game changer. And this is related to the next step “Adjust“. Things are not always perfect and small adjustments can have massive results. That was exactly what happened. However, there was a plan B, plan C and sometimes even plan D. Not always of course but with the right system in place, it was much easier to find alternatives when things were not perfect.

And finally Repeat. After getting this circle right and make continuous improvements, it was about repeating. Funny enough every time there were opportunities to adjust and improve. So it was obvious that there was no perfect plan and not even perfect execution.

My biggest takeaway is there are no shortcuts to success and consistency is instrumental. Because goals are good to get the direction but systems are the ones that will make us progress. And I feel like we’re happier when we make progress in any aspect of life.

2. Work-Life Balance.

This one is interesting because by law, the maximum a Swiss company can ask you to work is 45 hours a week (apart from some manual jobs which allow 50). That’s relatively high compared to other countries, with France on 35 hours and the UK on 36.5 hours.

However workers in Switzerland are generally have the reputation of having a good work/life balance. And I’ve actually seen it in real life and had several conversations with them to get their thoughts on that. Swiss cities are typically ranked as having leading world quality of life.

From experience lunch breaks are important, the culture of part-time work and the high salaries are some of the things that contribute to a good work-life balance. In fact, it’s very common that people use the lunch breaks to go to the gym as going after work is very unlikely because it’s time for family and you really respect that in Switzerland.

In Zurich, generally you don’t arrive to a meeting late (yes of course, few minutes it’s still acceptable but I mean not really late like in some countries in Southern Europe), people respect time much more. Like your time is as valuable as their time, so why don’t we both respect it? If you eat a sandwich at your desk, people will see it as a weird thing… unless you went to the gym or had an appointment and because you ran out of time you needed to eat at your desk.

3. Minimalism.

Shopping is like a national sport in the UK and the US. In Switzerland, while people still spend their money, the attitude is not the same. For one thing, most shops close on Sundays. Everything is relatively expensive compared to most countries in the world. Of course, salaries are higher in absolute terms compared to the rest of Europe but it really made me re-think the amount of time I personally dedicated to shopping, and I really feel much better buying less.

Because sometimes in Zurich and also generally in Switzerland, my sustainability side woke up. Swiss people they also understand the impact of human activity on climate change and are keen to avoid making things worse.

Simple thing like A/C – we all know already that this is not common in residential places (let’s say our houses) but also it’s not common in offices either! So in summer, it’s hot and people don’t have A/C in the office and there’s multiple explanations but once few Swiss colleagues told me “look, ask yourself if you really need to spend this amount of energy to please yourself for few hours of hot weather? is it worth? if the answer is yes, fine, get a fan… but if it’s not worth, please do not complain”.

Final Thoughts

No doubts, Zurich is a place that guided me to see the value of things and an interesting one to build habits. How to appreciate more life and understand our journey is not just work, there’s more than that. Nature is a key factor to keep me grounded and something I truly respect. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed nature in Switzerland.

So the PEAR system (including time management of course), striking a better work-life balance and approaching minimalism are the 3 habits that became part of my life.

Do I miss Switzerland? Yes, very much. However, I want to keep travelling to understand life to other places and meet amazing people from different cultures, languages, backgrounds, ethnicities, religions and so on. How can I understand life by reading a book and not seeing it myself?

What are your 3 habits?